Vision Boards, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a Surprise

When One Teacher Didn’t Throw Away Her Shot

Featured NAfME Member Spotlight | Lesley Moffat

Online band is hard.

In an environment where students and teachers normally collaborate and work toward shared goals through the work we do in our ensembles, I was struggling with how to teach those important skills in a virtual environment, and I knew that if I didn’t find a way to help students nurture those skills now, then it would make our work harder when we eventually return to the classroom.

Enter—vision boards.

One of the activities my students and I did is create vision boards that identify one goal we want to accomplish by the end of the school year. When we were making the boards, students asked me what my goal is, and I replied, “I want to have Lin-Manuel Miranda as a guest co-host for You, Me, & A Cup of Tea” (which is the new daily routine we do at the beginning of each class: I spotlight a different student each day with an interview, and they share some music with the class). We’ve been studying Hamilton, and I saw the opportunity for him to not only inspire my own students who are desperately missing making music with their friends but also to speak to music teachers and students with whom I could share this video.

My purpose in doing so was to 1) show my students the power of having a vision, taking steps to reach the goal, and reaching out for help when they need help, and 2) creating a video that can be shared with music educators and students around the world who could use some uplifting words from Lin-Manuel to remind them of the power of the arts—and not to give up when circumstances become difficult.

Fast-forward a few weeks—a short video I posted on Facebook was viewed tens of thousands of times and shared by hundreds of people. I received countless messages with email addresses and other ways to contact Lin-Manuel. I followed up with all of the leads.

But it was William who got Lin to respond.

I awoke early one morning to find a package on my front porch with a note that said, “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DIRECTED BY Honors Wind Ensemble.” A few hours later during our online class, I was instructed to open the mystery box.

Inside the box was an envelope. When Will said, “Ms. Moffat, who’s it from?”, I looked at the return address, and my jaw fell to the floor when I saw Lin-Manuel Miranda’s name in the top left-hand corner of the envelope!

As I opened the envelope and I realized what Will had done, the tears started flowing.

In my hands was a handwritten note thanking me for my work with my students. And on my computer screen I saw the dozens of kiddos I’ve been with for years share in the joy and excitement of this moment.

Excerpt from Will’s email to me about how this happened:

“I was pretty excited too because less than 24 hours after sending an email to Lin-Manuel, I got a response back from his wife! I was amazed out of my mind that I was talking to Lin-Manuel’s wife! She said that Lin-Manuel would write you a handwritten letter, and I got so excited! I didn’t think it would arrive because of the valiant efforts you have been making to meet him. When I got the letter in the mail, I started jumping up and down! I was not only excited that I was holding something touched by THE Lin-Manuel Miranda, but I was also excited to see your reaction. I have experienced a lot of troubles throughout this pandemic that a lot of other people have as well. It made me so happy to see your reaction and feel the joy coming through the screen. It also made me happy that we can still enjoy these experiences through zoom and still make everyone happy.
I am beyond honored to have received a handwritten letter from Lin-Manuel. Sharing that joy with the kids was really a powerful bonding moment—much like when we all have a performance that required a lot of hard work to make happen, but the payoff is grand when it all comes together.”

Since we couldn’t have a winter concert this year, I created a special video for my students to summarize our Online Band experience. The letter from Lin-Manuel made the video. (Disclaimer: My first day ever rapping was 36 hours before recording this . . . just sayin’!)

I have not given up on having Lin-Manuel as a co-host for You, Me & A Cup of Tea. I have put together a handful of questions to ask him to inspire teachers and students who are struggling with missing making music with their peers and questions for his advice to decision-makers about the importance of keeping the arts alive and well in spite of financial challenges. Our kids have never needed the arts like they do now during these challenging times.

About the author:

NAfME member Lesley Moffat has taught high school band for more than thirty years and is currently the Director of Bands at Jackson High School in Mill Creek, Washington. She is the author of I Love My Job But It’s Killing Me: The Teacher’s Guide to Conquering Chronic Stress and Sickness and Love the Job, Lose the Stress. Moffat has been a presenter at multiple NAfME conferences and participated in conferences and webinars for Washington, Illinois, and Pennsylvania as well as being a guest on podcasts and serving as a guest conductor and adjudicator throughout the Pacific Northwest.

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The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) provides a number of forums for the sharing of information and opinion, including blogs and postings on our website, articles and columns in our magazines and journals, and postings to our Amplify member portal. Unless specifically noted, the views expressed in these media do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Association, its officers, or its employees.

January 8, 2021. © National Association for Music Education (NAfME.org)Tags: arts education, band, Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, online class, virtual learning, vision board, zoom

What’s the Secret for Music Teachers Who Don’t Feel Anxiety on Sunday Night When They Think about School?

They have a plan – and I’m not talking about a lesson plan for delivering content. I’m talking about a plan for intentionally creating a space where their students and they feel connected, supported, and at-ease.

But what does that look like?

I invite you to grab a cup of coffee or tea (or put something stronger in your mug, no one needs to know) and join me to tacet for a few minutes and experience how you can help ease your own (and your students’) anxiety so you can spend more time making music together and less time feeling overwhelmed.

I hope this short video gives you a much-needed opportunity to pause and take a breath before heading into the rest of the school year.

We’ve got a long road ahead of us. With a little attention to intention, we can make the journey better for everyone.

2021 – Let’s do this!

Lesley

Music Educator Mindful Intention Setting 2021 Replay

Music Education 2.0 – Ready or Not, Here We Grow!

Music education has been my whole life. I love my career. And now EVERYTHING about what I’ve done for over three decades is completely different.

How on earth do we serve our students and sustain our programs in the middle of a pandemic?

I’ve seen so much change during my years as a teacher. Technology and society have caused our kids to grow up faster than they were physiologically programmed to do, and the impact from all the stimuli on their ability to function in this world is huge.

For the first thirty-one-and-three-quarters years of my career, there was a lot that changed, but nothing like what happened when the 2020 pandemic hit the planet and, at the speed of light, uprooting everything we ever learned about teaching. Suddenly, in what was going to be my final quarter of teaching, I found myself, along with every other teacher in the U.S. and beyond, completely reinventing how I taught as the world came to a standstill and schools were shut down across the globe. I had to learn to teach high school band online!

The first few weeks of the abrupt transition from face-to-face teaching to the isolation of being quarantined and figuring out how to meet the emotional and educational needs of my students was daunting.

As we started working through what it would look like for us to continue our band classes without being together, I came to realize that the daily practices and protocols I established with my students (who often come to class with challenges like anxiety, depression, and difficulty focusing) as a way to help them focus and be present for class were even more important now.

The daily practice we did in one another’s presence every day – taking four minutes to do breathing and relaxation together – up-leveled our in-class experiences because of the way it synchronized all the students each day, which caused our rehearsal time to be at least three to four times more productive than in the past. I knew that since our routine had such a positive impact on our ability to bring sixty-plus teenagers together and get them focused when we were in person, it was critical that we continued to practice that same routine when we were isolated and experiencing heightened anxiety and trauma. The ritual of getting our bodies and brains to relax each day before we started class was more important now than ever.

Kids are constantly told to “sit still and be quiet,” yet they’re never really taught how to harness their energy and social reflexes so they can actually sit quietly and focus their attention. Guess what happens when you actually teach students how to physiologically reset their bodies and brains so all of the restless energy (side conversations, excessive physical movements, difficulty focusing, inability to pay attention or remember) gets out of their way and they are able to start with a clean slate? It’s truly remarkable. It’s how we are biologically programmed to function at our best, so why not work with nature and teach our students how to tap into this? Once you do, you will be blown away at the changes: the ease of teaching, the attentiveness of the students, the retention of content, and a million other positive changes that take place as a result of taking the time to teach students this critical skill.

Teaching kids to get into this learning state is no different than teaching them technique on an instrument. It’s muscle memory – that is all. By practicing scales slowly, you train their muscles to respond in specific ways. The more you repeat patterns, the easier it is for them to execute those patterns and the quicker their responses become.

The same goes for teaching kids to settle down. Once your students practice a relaxation routine on a consistent basis, their bodies learn to be still because the muscles learn how to relax. Their brains are no longer in hyper mode; instead, they respond to this practice by learning to let go of the drama and other stuff floating around in their heads and become cleared out for whatever content or concept you want to introduce.

You have an incredible opportunity to help your students not just be successful musicians but to be exceptional human beings. Music teachers change the world. We are arguably the most influential adults on the planet. We have kids in our classes year after year after year. We watch them grow up. We are the only adults they see that frequently, sometimes even more than their parents, see them. So, we have important work to do – and we need the stamina to do it.

That’s where this book comes in. If I learned about the power of teaching this skill before diving into content with my students, I could have been a healthier and more effective teacher from the start. Instead, I spent the first three decades of my career teaching the way I was taught, actively handling classroom management and correcting behaviors instead of giving my students the skills to self-regulate so I could focus on teaching. It took a lot more energy (both physically and mentally) to teach when I didn’t have a daily routine to get everyone relaxed and focused.

For most of my life, I didn’t know how to relax, and teaching was a hyperactivity for me. I did it well, but managing all the components of a huge music program required active work, both mentally and physically. Even teaching classes took a lot of energy. Corralling the energy of sixty kids an hour, day after day, and motivating them to meet my goals was exhausting. Once I learned the power of teaching students to relax and settle that energy down before starting to teach class, everything became so much easier for all of us.

I’m a much more effective teacher now. Instead of force-feeding kids everything I believe they should know and feel, I facilitate their abilities to tap into the music and hear the message it has for them. I learned how to help them go from states of stress – where learning is difficult, if not impossible – to a place where their brains and bodies are receptive and ready to learn, remember, and recall what they’re discovering. It sounds like a whole new way of teaching, but really, it’s not. It’s the way we were programmed to learn.

When we teach students how to get into a learning state, teaching and learning become so much easier, leading to less stress for you and your students.

This process can be used by children of all ages and across all socio-economic statuses, cultures, orientations, and marginalization, including over-achievers and AP/Honors kids. In fact, it’s often most effective for the kids you’d least expect.

Just like a carpenter needs the proper tools and high-quality wood and a plan if he is going to create a craftsman-style piece of furniture, teachers need tools to do their jobs well, too. One of the most powerful tools a teacher has is being able to guide their students into a readiness-to-learn state before delivering content. This one simple step has more impact on every aspect of student growth than any other pedagogical tool I encountered in the more than 30,000 classes I taught over the course of my career.

This book is my way of sharing what I learned so other band directors can do the important work of teaching in a way that is easier and more effective for them and their students. I want to support them in their efforts to be positive role models and mentors for their students. I want to work with teachers who realize that our roles include shaping kids into responsible and respectful human beings through the magic of music education. It takes a lot of stamina to do this year after year, and I am here to share strategies that support dedicated music teachers who are called to change kids’ lives for the better.

Under the best of circumstances, teaching is stressful and exhausting.

After our 2020 health crisis, it’s going to be even more so, and unless you have a plan in place for how you’ll help students cope with the strange new world in which we live, it’ll be overwhelming and daunting for you and your students.

If you have a routine that already works, then now is the time to reevaluate it and see what you might need to tweak in order to meet the new needs of your students. Most of them will be affected by everything that happened as a result of the pandemic, so teaching-as-usual will be anything but usual. You know your students and community best, so you can use this book as a guide to help you assess and possibly redesign what you do in light of our new normal.

If you don’t have a routine you use to help your students overcome the distractions of life so they can focus in your class, then I’m especially glad you picked up this book! Now’s your chance to practice some new skills that will help you and your students get the most out of your classes in spite of the added stress, anxiety, depression, and more they’ll be dealing with.

This book outlines the process I designed and implemented in my classroom and is set up to help you create a plan to successfully teach music to students who will be forever changed after this worldwide shift in education and life as we once knew it.

My work with my students always comes from a place of love. As I came to what was going to be the end of a long and fulfilling career in music education in June of 2020, I found myself being called to stay in my classroom and community a little while longer. I see the writing on the wall and know there will be massive shifts in everything we do as educators now, so I made the commitment to remain with my students and walk beside them on this journey. Providing them with the stability of our routines together during a time of upheaval and uncertainty is essential not just for them but for me, too. Now more than ever, they need to continue to practice what we were doing every day in class – relaxing amidst the chaos.

Because my students and I learned to make our classroom a place where we decompress together every day, I know I will have the stamina to be present with them as we adapt to our new ways of doing things. Even though we will all have more reasons to be distracted with each passing day and the rapid changes taking place to education and we will undoubtedly experience plenty of stressful situations, we will forge ahead with our daily routine that allows us to settle into an hour of magical music-making together, where we can put our worries and distractions on the back burner and use music as a tool to help us cope, heal, and express ourselves.

This book is the culmination of my life’s work and shares the most powerful wisdom I gained from my decades of experience as a busy band-directing mom who managed to build a successful band program in spite of a million obstacles. My wish for you is that you will find it to be instrumental in helping you be that badass band director you were born to be so you can be there for your students for a long time to come.

Check out a FREE SNEAK PEEK of Love the Job, Lose the Stress: Successful Social and Emotional Learning in the Modern Music Classroom now!

FREE SNEAK PEEK

If My “SEL in the Modern Music Classroom” Webinar Resonated with You, I Want to Know…

As I’ve talked to hundreds of music educators over the past few months, it’s been exciting to see how many of you recognize the positive impact that intentionally teaching students how to focus and pay attention has on their individual success and for the entire class.

When I knew it was time for me to write a book, I struggled with how to do it. Should I start with a title, or do I write the chapters first? Do I write them in order? How do I decide what’s important to include and what not to include? I had SO many questions that I became paralyzed and almost didn’t move forward.

I knew that if I was going to be successful in writing a book, I needed help from someone who had successfully done that before AND who had taught other people to do it before, so I found a mentor. That was the best investment I could have made.

I signed up to work with Angela Lauria on August 17, 2018. With the guidance of someone who had plenty of experience doing what I wanted to do, I not only wrote a book, but I’ve published TWO #1 International Bestsellers – and in just two short years, I have gone from dreaming of writing a book to publishing two of them and teaching the contents of the books at conferences, webinars, podcasts, and through the groups I coach.

My ability to achieve this dream in such a short amount of time came because I had the support of a mentor and a tribe of other authors who supported one another through the process. We were all writing different books, but we faced many of the same challenges, and by hearing one another share our victories and difficulties, we all learned how to become successful authors.

If you know that incorporating SEL activities will help your students be more prepared to be engaged and focused but you aren’t sure how to set it up, introduce it, and successfully implement it when it gets hard, then I’d love to talk to you.

If you watched my webinar and are ready to take your students to new heights and would like to find out more about the support I offer, I invite you to set up a call with me to see if we’d be a good fit to work together. Just click the button at the bottom of this email to set up an appointment.

Here’s a little info – Let me know if I can be of service.
Lesley

Set up a Call

PS – If you missed the webinar, you can check it out here. Just scroll to the August 6 webinar called “SEL in the Modern Music Classroom”.

SEL Video Replay

Music Educator Mondays – Let’s Prepare for the Future of Music Education Together!

I am STOKED to have Dr. Matthew Arau of #upbeatglobal joining me on a webinar for Music Educator Monday this week at 9:00 AM pacific / noon eastern time, where we will talk about the realities of what our roles as music educators are during school closures and what we should be prepared for when we return to our classrooms, whenever that may be.

Matthew and I will be sharing our thoughts about the critical role music teachers play in helping our students and communities cope during this crisis.

We’ll also be sharing tools you can use to keep your own stress levels managed so you have the stamina to do this for the long haul.

If you can’t make it to the webinar, register anyway and I’ll send you the replay.

Together we rise!

Webinar Registration

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sX3udf6DSqW3EvW7kIlz_A

What is Band Director Boot Camp?

People keep asking me, “What is Band Director Boot Camp?”

Band Director Boot Camp is the program I designed for the band director who wants to:

Up-level your program now
Build a successful and sustainable music program that is respected in your school and community
Serve students by helping them become awesome human beings through the magic of music education
Make band a place where every student feels welcome and safe to be themselves
Spend more time teaching music and less time on all of the other stuff
Find a better balance between work and family life
Build a tribe with other like-minded band directors for support, encouragement, and masterminding
Cut through a lot of the pain and time that go with building a program with practical advice from someone with over 30 years of experience as a high school band director and mother of three

It’s true that between zero period jazz band, evening concerts, pep band events, trips, fundraising, and meetings, the life of a high school band director is never dull! There’s great joy to be had as you shape young musicians into awesome human beings, but there’s also a price to pay when you love doing it so much that your life’s work becomes all-consuming. How do you meet your students’ needs and still have a life of your own – without being so exhausted that you can’t enjoy it?

I found that when it came time for me to actually write the book I’d been thinking about for years, I was successful when I found someone to coach me through the process. It wasn’t about having someone else do the work – I did all the writing, but I did it with someone who has successfully published thousands of books, so I got it done in three months. Not only did I get it done in a much shorter time than if I’d tried doing it on my own, but my book reached Best Seller status and has launched me into coaching, teaching professional development, presenting at conferences, being a guest for webinars, podcasts and radio shows, and mentoring other music teachers. I was far more successful at writing a book and so much more because I worked with a mentor instead of trying to figure it out on my own.

Band Director Boot Camp is the same concept. I’ve taught over 30,000 classes in my teaching career, so I’ll teach you how to sidestep common pitfalls and energy-suckers and spend more time teaching music. I will be your resource and help you identify and reach your milestones, whether that involves starting a booster program or setting up your first big trip, while saving you hours and hours of time – and lots of headaches and stress!

After reading I Love My Job but It’s Killing Me, Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser said, “Most of us have learned many of these lessons [overworking and burning out] THE HARD WAY. We are convinced we can “push a bit harder” each time around…but – alas – we do burn up the engine in doing so. I want all the young teachers to read the book so they can avoid learning some of these lessons through self-abuse. This is a profound contribution to the entire educational profession.”

Band Director Boot Camp takes the principles of my first book and applies them to the life of a busy band director, giving you practical and proven strategies for being the badass band director you always dreamed of being!

If you’d like to learn more, check out this self-assessment to get a clearer picture of your goals and what is keeping you from reaching them.

Band Director Self-Assessment

The Biggest Mistake I Made When I Was Trying to Build My Band Program

From as early as I can remember, I knew I was going to be a high school band director. My dad was my high school band director and our family’s life revolved around that band program. I wanted to build the same kind of program that would be visible in the school, community, and beyond and I really wanted to serve students and their families in the process.

I did it … but it was often really hard. I was doing everything I thought I should do to take the program to the next level, but I was desperate to learn how to be an even better teacher without all the trial and error. I wanted to be a band director who was able to spend more time teaching music and less time managing all the drama that goes with the gig. So in addition to teaching full time, I’d attend conferences and professional development to build my skills as a teacher in order to help my students and the program flourish.

It puzzled me as to why I’d go to a conference, attend tons of amazing sessions, capture all kinds of ideas for everything from how to teach intonation and select literature to the nuts-and-bolts of percussion instrument maintenance and incorporating SEL components into my lessons, and return to my classroom gung-ho to implement all the incredible ideas so I could fast-track my students and my program, but after a week or two of trying the new ideas, we’d lose momentum and I’d slip back into old habits.

At conferences, I’d take copious notes and ask lots of questions at the sessions, so why was I having such a hard time successfully implementing these techniques in my classroom? How could I be a more effective teacher without working even harder? How could I work smarter?

In a lot of ways, it makes me think of Pinterest – you know what I mean, you see a post on Pinterest that is way too cool to pass up, so you dive in and gather everything you need to make that Disney Princess cake (even though you’ve never decorated a cake before) and start the project. Only your cake doesn’t look anything like the one in the photo you saw. Instead, you’ve got a hot mess of frosting that makes the princesses look like they’ve been caught in a downpour. Even though you followed all the steps, your results were clearly not aligned with what you intended to do.

That’s how I used to feel after conferences. I would try the newest tuning technique or breathing exercises that someone was teaching at a conference, and I’d get good results…for a while. Then the students and I would slip into old habits and we’d be right back to where we started. It was frustrating for everyone.

As I got older and wiser (and tired of wasting precious time and energy), I took a hard look at why I was having a hard time implementing so many of these awesome strategies my peers were teaching.

The biggest mistake I made when it came to building my program came down to this: I’d take all these new ideas and try to implement them in my classroom and would get haphazard results. I wanted to accelerate kids’ learning so much that I’d overwhelm them with too much and we’d all get frustrated. After the novelty of whatever it was I was trying to implement wore off, momentum to keep working on it faded (on my part and for the students), and then I would assume the new idea didn’t work, when, in fact, it turns out when ideas weren’t successful, it was generally because I hadn’t thought through the crucial steps of how to implement them in a way that made sense in my classroom.

As you head to conferences and other professional development this spring, I’d like to offer a few pointers I’ve picked up over the more than three decades I’ve spent as a band director so you can fast-track your program to success … without burning out in the process.

Don’t try to implement every strategy you learned in every conference session at the same time!
Do pick one strategy that will have the biggest impact on getting you to your primary goal and make a commitment to incorporating it into your routine for 21 days. (For example, if you’ve attended a great session about how to teach students to learn to tune, spend a little time every day for 21 days practicing the new technique so you’ll be able to truly assess whether or not it’s having an impact.)
Consider how you will implement what you learn into your own program (vs. trying to just immediately implement the technique the identical way the person who introduced it did in his or her classroom) so it will be sustainable instead of just one more thing you tried that ends up not working.
Have a non-negotiable why behind the reason you are implementing the new skill or procedure so you aren’t tempted to just give up when it gets hard.
Think about your personality, your students, the way you teach best, and use those things to inform the best way for you introduce and implement new ideas so they are successful with your kiddos.
Find a trusted mentor who is committed to helping you hold yourself accountable and be there to help you through the hard stuff. There’s no substitute for collaborating with someone who’s achieved goals you’re aiming for and having them help you get there faster, easier, and with more sustainable results!

Livin’ the Dream! Here I am in the 1970s. My siblings were lined up on the couch with pretend instruments and piano music while I cranked music on the stereo and conducted them. I wanted to be just like my dad!

Teaching is hard work. When you have ideas or learn new teaching strategies, they can be game-changers … if they’re introduced and implemented properly. After all, isn’t that the ultimate goal when you attend a conference or PD? Don’t you want to take a new idea back to your classroom and see improvements for you and your students?

It can be hard to know where to start or what to do next to move your program in the direction you want it to go. That’s where I come in. I help music teachers build successful programs without burning out. I believe music educators can change the world, and it’s my mission on this planet to help music teachers build sustainable programs they can serve in for a long time. We have important work to do, and I’m here to support music teachers on their journey.

To schedule a complimentary 15-minute call to see if we’d be a good fit to work together, click this calendar link and let’s connect! I’ve got a couple of openings for motivated music teachers who are tired of trial and error and are ready for results!

With you on the journey-

Lesley

Schedule a Call!

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